This story was written by PENTUPFURY, it belongs to him and only him. The only reason it's available for viewing here is because it was deleted by the administrators of the website it was originally posted on and PENTUPFURY is no longer active.

Chapter 03: Building Uzu.

Natsuko rocked back and fell on her bum. She looked to her left and heaved a tired sigh. It had been over a week since they had reached the ruined island that once housed the proud and powerful village of Uzugakure. She had been rather disappointed actually. She had known that all that was left of her okaa-san's village was ruins but…well, that was it really. For some reason, while she had expected ruins, she hadn't expected JUST ruins.

Upon their arrival Uzu could be consider a large pile of rubble with wild vegetation pushing through and a fair amount of skeletons scattered around. She had freaked out when Naruto picked up a bleach white skull and asked her, oh so casually, if she thought it might be one of their uncles or cousins.

She had paid him back by having her clones collect all the skulls she could find, setting them all in concentric circles around a central 'ring', ripping her clothes of, getting on all four and giving him a view of her already dripping nether regions that she knew would rob him of all manner of self-restraint. He had gone through what she had come to recognize as the 'Three Steps' he went through every time she came up with something new to try. Step one he gives her the slightly freaked out 'Why the Fuck would you want to do that' expression. Step two he goes through with it because there's nothing he wouldn't do for his Natsu-chan. Step three he ends up liking it and pounding her into a sexual coma. It was only when they woke up the next morning surrounded by skulls, all of which were looking right at them, that they realized just how disturbing what they had done was.

She sighed again. She had become more perverted than one of Ero-teme's books.

The day after they 'christened' the island had been decidedly less enjoyable. In fact she hadn't seen much of her partner since then, only at mealtimes and the moments before or after they slept. They had been working non-stop since then and she could honestly say that, so far, building Uzu had been as boring as one of Iruka's history lectures.

FLASHBACK

"So where do we start Naruto-kun?"

He looked at her contemplatively, weighing his words before he spoke.

"Well, no offense, but I'm better at the whole 'architectural' business. So I think I'll take care of the more complicated parts and it'll be easier for me to just show you when I'm done." Natsuko nodded in agreement, he was better at that sort of thing. "Nonetheless I've thought about how we should organize the village and, most importantly how to prevent this," He made a sweeping motion with his arm, indicating the destroyed remains that surrounded them, "From happening again."

Natsuko spoke up, deciding to voice one of her concerns. "Are you sure there's enough space?" She asked dubiously. "I mean, from what you had said I had guessed that it was a relatively small island but…" She looked around theatrically, "I didn't expect it to be THIS small! I doubt you could fit half of Konoha in here. I know it's just the two of us for now but eventually there'll be more people and, well…they'll need space to live."

A small frown creased Naruto's brow. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I wondered about that myself when I first came. From the stories okaa-san told me the island was a lot bigger and the village itself was actually bigger than Konoha. My best guess is that the battles were violent enough that a lot of the island was destroyed and lost to the sea." They both scowled slightly at the loss of so much of their mother's heritage before Naruto shook himself out of his daze. "Anyway, for what I have planned, the smaller size is actually going to play to our advantage. We'll use the island for trade and diplomatic meetings. I think we should also build a stadium for when, and if, we host chuunin exams."

Her eyes widened as she caught on to what he intended to do. "You want to build the entire village underground?" She exclaimed incredulously. "Is that even possible? I mean the safe houses are one thing, but an entire village? Besides even if it is possible there's only so much space under this island and, unless we want to be totally dependent on trade alliances, we'll also need space for farming and livestock! Then there's training areas to account for!..."

Naruto raised his hands in front of him in a placating manner. "Hey! Hey! Calm down! I've thought about that, which is exactly why I'll be taking care of it." He said. "What I want you to do is build a huge stone wall all around the island. I'd say around sixty feet high and thirty feet thick. You can use the rubble to for raw materials and make it as dense and strong as possible. There's really no hurry, my part won't be over quickly, so take your time. Hmm…" he scratched his chin in thought. "So far I've focused mostly on the underground parts so if you want I can leave the surface up to you."

She thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I can do that. I guess it'll just be a smaller model of a normal shinobi village. We'll need a small hospital; a fancy building for all the political crap; the stadium, like you said; and also a place like the 'Forest of Death' for the second part of the exam. But if the island is mainly going to be used for trade then most of the buildings will be hotels, shops and warehouses."

"That sounds about right!" Naruto replied. He reached into his trench coat and, with a small flare of chakra, pulled out a small brown scroll. "Here! In this there are other scrolls with more raw materials sealed inside. The details are all written down on the labels. When you've used up all the junk around here you can use that." He chuckled. "There should be more than enough rock considering there's half a mountain in there." He got to his feet and dusted himself of. "When you start on the building remember to use clones and civilian methods, rather than elemental manipulation, since civilians will need to be able to do repairs."

END FLASHBACK

Natsuko got back on her feet and moved to the left to get started on a new part of the wall. At first she had thought that it would be an easy job, but she quickly came to realize just how wrong that assumption was.

Doton manipulation was one of her best elements so building a sixty foot high, thirty foot thick wall in ten foot wide sections wasn't all that hard for her. The difficult, and time consuming, part was compressing the loose earth and rock into one dense block of stone. It was many times denser than anything she would even consider using in combat for the simple reason that, even with her skill it required far too much mental concentration.

As such, nine days later, she was barely half way done. What made things worse was that she had already done a good fifteen sections when the training from their last months in the mountain safe house gave her an idea.

FLASHBACK

She had just finished reading the scrolls on doton jutsu after mastering doton manipulation. They were now sitting in their favorite spot under the sakura tree and Naruto was explaining the next step in her training.

"OK! First I have a question for you. You remember the first time we met and I killed those Root ANBU?"

She gave a single nod. "Yeah, you made a cloud with their blood and made it rain all over the clearing." She answered with a smirk. "That was awesome."

"Thanks, but how do you think I did it?"

She blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it. Seeing her confusion Naruto grinned.

"Well at least you didn't just assume it was a kinjutsu or a Kekkai Genki, which is what most shinobi do. Now, so far you've used neutral, or normal, chakra and elemental chakra. Although you've only trained the elements you have an affinity for. But do you know what other types of chakra there are?"

Natsuko only had to think for a moment before she got the answer. "You mean sub-elements?"

Naruto pushed himself up onto his feet and started pacing back and forth.

"You see that's the problem. The academy teaches us that for chakra there are five elements: Fire; Water; Earth; Lighting; and Wind. Then that there are sub-elements made from a combination of two elements: Ice from Water and Wind; Wood from Water and Earth; Boil from Water and Fire; etc. What's worse is that students are taught that only kekkai genki users have access to these sub-elements."

"Well…they're right aren't they?" She asked with a confused look, to which Naruto vigorously shook his head.

"Not at all," He tapped two fingers to his heart, where she knew their okaa-san was sealed. "You've already seen my 'eternal ice' and the only kekkai genki I have is the large chakra reserves of the Uzumaki Clan." He stopped in front of her. "What I've found is that there is a chakra type for just about everything, well…every natural thing. I doubt there's ice-cream chakra or ramen chakra." Pushing that thought aside he continued his explanation. "Rather than calling it 'sub-elemental chakra' I call it 'complex chakra'. What you have to do is mix the right chakra elements in the right way and in the right amounts. Kekkai Genki are just shortcuts that make the process instinctual, or subconscious. I doubt that bloodline limit users have any idea of what their really doing. The reason other shinobi can't do it is because they don't have the elemental control needed to do so. That's also the reason the Sharingan can copy complex chakra type jutsu but not use them. Are you following so far?"

Natsuko nodded with a slightly dazed expression on her face, not because she was having difficulty understanding, but because of the possibilities that her brother's theory opened up.

"Good," He said. "At the moment you've only mastered tree elements so your possibilities are somewhat limited. From now on I'll let you decide when you train your remaining elements and when you try and find complex chakra combinations. You'll have to keep in mind that mastering Raiton and Suiton will take a lot longer even with Kage Bushin. The same goes for complex chakra, the mix will be a lot easier if it uses the elements you have an affinity for."

She frowned a little. "But if I use a couple thousand clones a day it couldn't take that long to master them could it? I mean from what you said before I got to this level faster than most get to the level needed for hand sealed ninjutsu. It can't take that much longer."

Naruto shook his head in negative. "You're underestimating how much easier it is when you have an affinity. There's a reason so many shinobi never reach jounin status and it's often because they don't have the second required affinity. Of course there are some jounin who don't have two elements but they're usually specialists or are given advancement for political reasons. At the moment in all the Elemental Nations the only non-bloodline user that I know can use ninjutsu from all five elements is Jiraya. An accomplishment that took most of his career to achieve and even then, from what I've heard he can't use anything above C maybe B rank jutsu in some elements. And that's with hand seals." His face scrunched up. "Actually there's also this guy called Kakuzu who is rumored to have mastered all five elements but I don't know much about him, only what's in the black market bingo book, which isn't a lot since most of the people who've fought him didn't live to tell about it."

He paused and sat back down. "If I used hand seals I would be considered a master in all the main elements, but without I only have mastery of Suiton, Futon and Raiton. I'm pretty advanced in Katon and Doton, enough that I can use them in battle or for complex chakra, but I've still got a ways to go for mastery, and I've been Kage bushin training for years."

Natsuko's shoulders slumped in disappointment but she quickly squared them. She wouldn't let something like that get to her, if she had to train long and hard then that's exactly what she'd do. "So what should I do from now on?" She asked.

"Well, as I said the two other main elements will take a while so you should do what I do and have a bunch of clones work on them whenever you can. For complex chakra, well at first it's more a question of understanding than training. You have to understand how something works and then try to recreate it. That's why I had you learn about physics, chemistry and other such things." He tipped his head back in thought, starring into the cavern's fake sky. "For example, tell me, what is ice?"

The female Uzumaki blinked at the question. "Uhm, frozen water I guess." She answered blandly. Sure she could give a more detailed response if she HAD to, but unlike her partner she had no love for the theoretical side of things. Naruto sighed at her lack of enthusiasm.

"Basically, when frozen, water is a lot less 'mobile' than when it's at a normal temperature, which is why it becomes solid. To mold Hyouton(ice) chakra you have to use Futon chakra to 'steal' or 'remove' the heat from the Suiton chakra. If you don't use enough you'll just end up with cold water, and if you use too much you'll create ice but the excess wind will break it."

"That doesn't sound too hard." She said with a slight creasing of her brow.

Naruto just shrugged. "It isn't, the thing is most ninja don't have the control to pull it off. Also, very few study civilian sciences so they don't understand how things work. But don't get too comfy, ice is one of the easiest. When you try to do something with three elements it gets a whole lot harder. I've got notes on the complex chakra types I've found but you should try and find some yourself by starting with your affinities. Besides I think half the fun is in discovering them, and while I have found quite a few there are still loads more so you'd best get some practice."

Natsuko gave another nod to show she agreed; then she tilted her head to one side, her long pony tail swaying with the movement. "Hey! What about your Blood?"

"Yeah, it's my signature jutsu and its what gives me the nickname 'Bloody Storm', I made that up myself by the way." He smiled sheepishly. "I figured that if I'm going to have a nickname it might as well be a cool one. Anyway, Blood type chakra is a mix of: Water, because of the organic aspect; Fire, because of the energy aspect; and Earth, because of the mineral aspect. You can also say that Water makes it liquid; Fire gives it warmth; and Earth brings stability. The more detailed parts are kind of hard to explain but I do have it all written down if you want."

Looking at his imouto he realized that she was only half listening, already trying to come up with her own complex chakra types. Smiling at his student's faraway look Naruto gave one last piece of advice.

"Keep in mind that you can use the same elements, but if you use different amounts or mix them differently you can get completely different results."

END FLASHBACK

Natsuko had found a few complex chakra combinations connected to her affinities. She had also started training in Water and Lightning manipulation, but as expected progress was slow.

The first had been inspired by her memories of Gaara and his tenant, by combining Wind and Earth she had successfully reproduced Sand chakra and practiced its manipulation. Like ice the concept was fairly simple. The Douton broke down the earth and stone and Futon controlled the movement. The result could create barriers of great density or desert like storms that flayed flesh from bone. Of course having a mastery over Wind and Earth didn't give her a mastery over Sand, so she wasn't anywhere near the Kazekage's level. But she could do some decent stuff and was only getting better.

She had mixed Fire and Wind to create Heat chakra. At first the combination had only produced stronger flames that often escaped control and blew up in her face, but with constant effort she had pulled through. The trick was to mold them together in such a way that the Katon 'burnt the wind', rather than having the Futon 'fan the fire'. It could best be described as a hot air, but where a gust of wind would blow the enemy away. A gust of heat would, if properly used, would roast them like an oven.

By adding the right amount of Water to Heat, something she was lucky to achieve with her current level of Suiton manipulation, the blond Uzumaki had discovered Humidity. While attacks from this type of chakra weren't as hot or destructive, they could make things rust or rot at incredible speeds. Something Sasori had found out the hard way.

Her favorite however, was Lava. It was a mix of Fire and Earth that offered a good combination of attack and defense. The only downside was that it was rather slow. However she hadn't let that discourage her and had taken to using Heat to compensate. The combination is what led to her chosen alias of 'Burning Wave'.

Back to the matter at hand, it was after she had completed fifteen sections of the Uzu wall that she had come up with an idea.

When the lava from her techniques cooled down it left a mass of rock. What she picked up on was that lava, with its liquid state, was easier to shape than stone. So she went back to the first section of the wall and melted the whole thing. She used her Lava manipulation to hold it in shape, and then she compressed it beyond what she had been able to do with Earth manipulation. She had used more raw stone to make up for the loss of volume and thus ended up with an even denser wall. The major downer was that she had to hold the manipulation until the lava cooled. But she had clones for that and the use of Wind manipulation to create a low level breeze accelerated the process.

So here she was so many days later, half way round the island, and thoroughly cursing the idea of being Shodaime Uzukage. Patience, after all, only gets you so far.

/

Naruto was having fun. He had always liked planning, researching and inventing things, and seeing his projects through was the icing on the cake. What he hadn't told Natsuko was that he had intended to rebuild Uzu even before he met her. He hadn't planned on making it a shinobi village, more of a tribute to his mother's memory. But the fact remained that he had had a lot of time to think things through and draw blueprints.

He wasn't sure what had made his ancestors chose the island. It did have a good sea access for trade but that was pretty much canceled by the whirlpool fields that surrounded it. The whirlpools themselves did provide a defense from warships, and distracted water walking shinobi enough to make them easy targets. But the destruction of Uzu had proven that it was a mistake to rely too heavily on it.

He planned for new Uzu to be even harder to conquer than Taki and had poured his knowledge in engineering, building, sealing, and complex chakra into the project. While the safe houses were useful, they were also test runs for his arrays. Recreating and ecosystem that was not only self-sufficient but in many ways incomplete was a lot of hard work and a lot of things could go wrong. The safe houses basically had water, grass, flowers, trees, Koi fish and a hot spring. If they weren't lined in sealing arrays that purified the water and air, and fed the appropriate complex chakra types everything would have been dead in a matter of weeks. He didn't want to build an underground village, only for it to fail and kill itself because of a faulty seal.

First was the island, it would be the main access point to the deeper village and would host most of the business with other villages. Since it was the most visible part it would have to show Uzu's strength in an impressive display of both opulence and military might. The buildings would have to be both beautiful and intimidating, but that would mostly be Natsuko's job.

His first course of action was to create an army of clones to construct what would be the equivalent of the Kage Tower. They quickly got to work, digging trenches for the foundations, unsealing raw materials and preparing them for use.

Meanwhile he started 'digging' a hole, a very big and deep hole that descended at a forty five degree angle.

The way to new Uzu was open.

/

She had finished the wall. It had taken her another week but she had finished. As an added bonus her Lava manipulation had improved by a fair amount. The island was now surrounded by a high and sturdy wall at its very edge; she had had to 'fix' the ground in some points where jutsu damage had eroded it. It certainly made an impressive sight, if it wasn't for the change in color the wall would seem like a continuation of the island floor. At regular intervals she had constructed one hundred foot high watchtowers. They weren't overly large but if war ever came to the island they could host a few squads to hold back attackers until reinforcements arrived. Being a hundred feet above their enemies would also give the defenders the advantage.

The only breach was about a hundred and fifty yards wide and was the entrance to the harbor, and at each side she had built a more impressive tower. While these two towers weren't higher, they were considerably larger and could host more than enough shinobi to repel anyone who sought to force their way in. From there two shorter walls went inland for about a hundred feet or so to prevent anyone from sneaking in. (AN/ For a Birdseye view of the Uzu wall picture a circle (the island is pretty much circular) with a small part rubbed off at the top and a short line coming inwards from each end.)

The last step had been to paint chakra nullifying seals on all the outside face. The chakra nullifying seal was a fairly complex array, and while she understood it she wasn't capable of modifying it so she was using a model Naruto had designed. This type of seal wasn't to be confused with chakra restraining seals use on captives. The nullifying seal worked by dispersing all chakra that touched it, the energy wasn't absorbed or reversed it was simply dashed away, like warm air when it hits a cold surface. And of course in the same way that a cold surface could only take so much arm air before it heated up, a nullifying seal could only take so much chakra before it failed. In the case of this particular seal the amount of chakra was defined by how much was used to charge the seal. Natsuko had charged each seal, with one seal per section of wall, with roughly half a tail of youki, a half tail being about as much as the wall could take without becoming a health hazard. Of course with youki being many time more potent that meant that the seals could disperse a lot of chakra. She estimated that it would take at least thirty high A-rank jutsu in quick succession to break the seal, and then they still had to destroy the wall itself.

All in all she was proud of her work, and now she was going to have fun designing the beautiful 'top side' of their village. She could see her partner's clones working on the main building and from the looks of things that's where the entrance to the 'under-side' of the village would be too. So far it looked like he was going for a 'traditional feudal castle' look. That was mildly surprising since, while it would look good, it was a mostly wooden structure and thus not as enduring as the usual stone construction of a Kage tower. But she didn't let that bother her, he would probably paint more security seals on the thing than one could find on all the other Kage towers combined.

Enough of that! She had her own building to do. The first, and probably least elaborate part, would be the warehouses. They would be located at the harbor and would serve mostly as a display area for future buyers, at least how she picture it. After all why would need buildings just for storage when a well-designed seal was many times better, both for security and practicality? In fact why didn't most villages use storage seals? She had seen the large convoys of wood that left Konoha and hadn't questioned it at the time, but seeing the scroll Naruto gave her and the ridiculously huge amounts of wood and other materials he seemed to carry around with him she couldn't help but wonder why others didn't do the same. Then again most civilians couldn't mold chakra; or rather they didn't take the time to learn how, so using scrolls for commercial transport may not be possible for them.

She would just have to make sure that in HER village that wasn't the case.

There was also the question of how ships would get past those blasted whirlpool fields without ending up as driftwood. Now that she had finished the straightforward, if exhausting, wall Natsuko was starting to realize the difference between wanting to build a village and actually building it. She really hadn't thought things through.

Deciding to go about it another way she plopped down into a cross legged sitting position with her left elbow on her knee and her chin resting on the heel of her left hand. Placing her right palm on the loose soil in front of her she started channeling Douton chakra and manipulating it. She had memorized the general lay of the island so she first raised a miniature equivalent. She proceeded to add the walls, towers and what she had seen of Naruto's castle. Then she started playing around, adding warehouses and hotels, moving them around, changing one to a restaurant or a shop, coming up with different street layouts, trying different ideas for the stadium and generally messing about to find the best setup.

In the end she decided on a fairly simple layout. The warehouses would be built along the water front so that there was easy access to the ships in the harbor. A customs office would control all in and outgoing, be it goods or people. Next would be shops, restaurants and whatever other commerce there was however she wasn't going to build those yet and would simply divide the space into plots. That way shop owners would have a say in how their establishment was built. The third 'circle' as she liked to call them would be composed of hotels and private houses for the more prestigious visitors and guests. There was still a good bit of space until the castle, which was located about two third of the way inland, and she intended to have the extra room converted into a park or garden. It would serve a dual purpose; first it would be beautiful enough to make the jealousy of any Daimyo; and second, if there was an attack and if the enemy got this far it would make a good battle field, a battle field where the defender would have a large advantage since she intended to set up remote activated defenses. It would be a death trap!

Over to the West side of the island, with the harbor being at the North, would be the exam complex. It would consist of examination rooms, a team testing area similar to the Forest of Death, and the stadium itself. She had already decided that it would be used not only for eventual chuunin exams hosted by Uzu, but to test the teams they would send to chuunin exams in other villages. She had learnt how important the village's reputation would be for prospective clients and wouldn't risk sending undertrained teams.

The rest of the island would be a mixture of different terrains for training grounds.

There wasn't much to say about the building themselves: the warehouses were just large empty rooms built of wood and mostly stone bricks. The shops were waiting for owners to be built. The hotels were all quite luxurious but weren't innovative, simply bringing slight modifications to the usual styles. The houses were divided into two groups: first were the houses for important guests such as Kages and Daimyos; second were the houses for honored guests such as Koyuki, Gaara and Tazuna. Of course she hoped that they would be allowed access to the deeper parts of Uzu but that would mostly depend on Naruto.

'Speaking of,' she thought as she created thousands of clones and sent them of in groups to start construction. 'It's been two weeks since I've last seen him.' That was by far the longest amount of time they'd been apart in more than three years.

She pushed the thought aside. They were going to live VERY long lives so there were bound to be times when they were apart. Shifting a bit to one side she sat in front of a clear space and started trying out new ideas for the stadium.

/

The corner of Naruto's mouth twitched in a small smile as he felt the shift in his chakra. He had been 'digging' for about a day and a half now, going slowly to make sure that there would be no cave-ins. The shift was due to the change from earth to water as his chakra probe breached the side of the island near to the ocean floor. Digging tunnel with Douton manipulation was a simple matter of creating a probe in the desired shape and perhaps a dozen feet long then pushing the earth outwards, compacting it to reinforce the walls; floor and ceiling. It had become harder as he got deeper. The soft earth giving place to hard rock, but that ensured that the tunnel wouldn't collapse under the increased mass above it. He was now getting to the delicate part, ending the tunnel without flooding it.

But he had, of course, planned for this. His Eternal Ice was the key to success. The name never failed to bring a smile to his face since it actually wasn't ice. The chakra composition was very close, incredibly close actually, but there was still a difference. When he created it he had been trying to find a way to prevent the ice from melting. He had heard of a clan from Kiri whose Kekkai Genki allowed them to use ice that didn't melt, something he couldn't claim.

He had already been quite advanced in complex chakra by that time but there was one aspect he couldn't quite harness. Some of the Sub-Elements were commonly attributed properties that didn't really make sense. Ice, for example, melts. Whether infused with chakra or not, when face with a strong enough flame ice melts.

So why then does that clan's ice not melt?

Likewise, the Shodaime's Mokuton gave him the ability to bind the Bijuu and even control them. The obvious question, though apparently not so obvious for the general masses, was: why would wood allow him to control demons?

Creating Wood chakra and Ice chakra was easy for Naruto but neither had those special properties. His best guess was that the complex chakra created by the Kekkai Genki was more just than Ice or Wood. So he had experimented and eventually found a solution.

Eternal Ice was made of three base elements: Water; Wind and Earth. Like normal ice it was mostly made of the first two and in the same way. The difference was that the Earth chakra stabilized the whole and gave a complex chakra that would be better named as Crystal chakra. It was incredibly hard but also remarkably light. The reason he continued to call it Eternal Ice rather than Crystal was to commemorate how he discovered it.

That was what he was going to do now using the abundant sea water. The village wouldn't only be underground. It would be underwater, protected by swirling whirlpools and treacherous currents. He started by creating a batch of shadow clones and having them stand at regular intervals all the way along the tunnel. He could do it bit by bit like Natsuko did the wall, but since the clones wouldn't need to use much chakra-only enough to maintain the manipulation-this way would be faster.

Seeing his clones in position, he closed his eyes and focused on his chakra. Elemental manipulation was a question of infusing the chakra into the correct base element and then shaping it, this was the reason most shinobi couldn't perform Suiton jutsu without a source of water; Douton jutsu out at sea; etc. Contrary to popular belief the Nidaime Hokage's bloodline didn't permit him to create water out of nothing, but to draw the ambient water from the air around him. Something any skilled Suiton user could learn with enough effort. It was possible to create something from chakra but it required extreme amounts of chakra to do so and even then it was an unstable parody. The Kage Bushin was a perfect example of this flesh and bone created from large amounts of neutral chakra, but a single hit and the entire construct would collapse.

Molding his chakra into the combination for Crystal chakra he focused it, gathering into the air around him, into the remaining rock in front of him and into the sea water beyond. The rock gradually turned into a transparent blue and expanded outwards. Naruto made the Crystal pass along the tunnel, coating the surfaces in a thick layer until it was half way towards his first clone. The clone then took over the manipulation and directed it along his section of the tunnel until it reached the next clone, and so on. The original kept producing and feeding the crystal down the chain, he had taken care to stop early enough that he had a large enough rock source to do the combination. It was a good thing that the Eternal Ice used very little Earth in comparison to Wind and Water.

When the chain reached its end the last clone he (the clone) settled everything into place by spilling it out to cover the floor giving the impression of a smooth surface made of precious stone, using the Earth chakra portion to give it a darker, opaque color. The clone then dispelled itself. Receiving the memory feedback the real Naruto stopped the backwards flow and started extending the tunnel forwards until it connected with the ocean floor, keeping the end closed so as not to drown himself in a flood of salt water.

He stopped at that point, knowing that the next part would be both time consuming and chakra expensive, even for a chakra monster like him.

FLASHBACK (A/N This is more of a partial flashback, it will be continued at a later date, when the time is right (^_^))

Natsuko collapsed onto Naruto's bare chest, her firm breasts smooching between their perspiring bodies. It had been a few days since they first made love and they had spent most of that time putting the expression 'Going at it like bunnies' to the test. That left large groups of shadow clones smoldering in jealousy as they were forced to continue training while listening to the increasingly load moans and screams of delight. Not to mention having to clean up the 'flooding' left in the wake of the two love birds. Needless to say if it wasn't for the fact that clone had to do their assigned task and would disperse on their creators death there would have been a full blown revolution in the safe house.

Blissfully ignoring her doppelgangers' malcontent, the female Uzumaki pushed herself onto her elbows so she could peer into her lover's eyes. She shifted her weight onto her right arm and, with her left index finger traced across his collar bone eliciting a small shiver from him. She continued down, past the spot above his heart where their mother was sealed (The seal doesn't show unless chakra is being channeled into it.), and down to his stomach, her finger rising and falling with the dips and rises of his toned abs.

"What's this one for?" She asked, trailing her finger along the scrawl of a large seal. "It looks like the one I have for Kyuubi."

Naruto flicked his eyes down, even though he knew what she was talking about, having placed it there himself.

"It only looks like yours because I wanted it to." He answered. "It's a common practice for seal masters to have the actual array of their more complex seals hidden in a design. It makes it harder for other's to understand it. This particular seal does quite a few things. How big do you think my chakra reserves are?"

"I don't know. But you're easily Kage level."

Naruto snorted softly causing her to give him a frowning pout. He shook his head in amusement. "Sorry, it's just that a Kage is generally defined as the strongest ninja in the village, so technically if there aren't any ninja above chuunin level…" He pushed the thought aside and got back to answering his own question. "I've already told you that the Uzumaki have large chakra reserves. Okaa-chan, for example, had the largest in Konoha. I'd say she had at least three times as much as Minato and she was a Kenjutsu specialist so they weren't as large as they could have been. There's a reason the KKI (Kumo Kiri Iwa) alliance didn't even try to get Uzu to join them and just launched a surprise attack, they couldn't afford to have them as enemies. A fully trained Uzumaki could, quite literally, throw high level jutsu for hours on end. You however have the Kyuubi on top of the Uzumaki Kekkai Genki so your reserves are already higher than even the best Uzumaki ninjutsu specialists were. You could already create a thousand Kage Bushin when your chakra control was all but non-existent. And that's a lot since I never saw kaa-chan make more than about one thousand five hundred. I…"

"Hang on a minute!" Natsuko interrupted incredulously. "What do you mean she could only make one thousand five hundred? I can create over five thousand if I want! Hell I've seen Kakashi make at least fifty and that was after a fight with Zabuza!"

Naruto lifted an eyebrow. "I think you're underestimating how hard the jutsu is to perform. There's a good reason it's classified as a kinjutsu. Hell, there are a bunch of good reasons. I've known Kakashi and I seriously doubt that he can create more than five shadow clones, especially given how lazy he became after he got his teammate's Sharingan."

Her eyebrows rose to her hairline at that snippet but she was too curious about the previous matter to ask about it. "Well I'm telling you I saw him make at least fifty!"

He sighed. "OK! OK! Tell me what happened."

"Well…that's it! He fought Zabuza, then Gato arrived with his thugs so I created a bunch of shadow clones and so did he."

"OK! But are you sure he made Kage Bushin?" He countered. "Keep in mind that the various bushin techniques are some of the easiest to do without seals. I doubt he's smart enough but he could even have made the hand seal for Kage Bushin and used Mizu Bushin instead, or Tsuchi Bushin or even a regular academy Bushin! The fact is that you saw him make a bunch of clones and you assumed they were the same type as yours."

Her mouth opened and shut a few times as she realized he was right.

"Besides," He added. "If it was that easy to everyone would do Kage Bushin training."

"Hang on a minute!..again." She exclaimed before finishing sheepishly at the volume of her voice. "Does that mean kaa-san had, um, three hundred times more chakra than Kakashi?"

He shook his head no. "Not at all, remember the basic scrolls on chakra. At any given time the human body produces chakra and, if the ninja's reserves are full, that chakra leaks out of his/her body. As the ninja grows, gets stronger and trains the amount produced slowly gets bigger. As it gets bigger it puts a strain on the ninja's chakra coils and ends up damaging them. Fortunately the damage is little enough that the ninja's natural healing repairs it and, in the process of doing so, reinforces and thickens the chakra coils. The more a ninja's reserves grow the thicker and tougher their coils get. The Uzumaki naturally have thicker and tougher chakra coils so we can handle the strain of Kage Bushin much better. In your case the Kyuubi adds more pressure to your coils forcing them to develop even more, which is why you have big reserves even for an Uzumaki."

She nodded slowly in understanding then looked at him, confused. "What about you? I know you can make just as many clones as me but you don't have a demo…" She trailed of, eyes wide as she looked back down at the seal on his belly.

"Wo-ooh!" Naruto exclaimed. "Slow down there hime! I don't have a demon sealed in me. I would have told you ages ago if that were the case. No, the seal has a couple of purposes. One of which is to create a thin barrier all around my body that stops my chakra from leaking out and forces it back into my chakra coils. That puts more strain on them and so on and so on…"

"So.." She started hesitantly. "How big are your chakra stores?"

"Well, I painted the seal on when I was eighteen so I've had it for about six years. I also got some serious boosts by taking chakra pills when my reserves were already full." He frowned at the memory. "That hurts like a bitch by the way. So…yeah, my reserves are quite a lot bigger that yours still." He grinned at her. "You can call me the chakra monster."

…

END FLASHBACK

When he was well rested Naruto headed down to the end of the tunnel. He walked, using chakra to stick the smooth and slippery slope of the Eternal Ice tunnel. There wasn't much to see, the violent waters prevented any kind of life from taking root. But that didn't stop him from taking pleasure in the fact that he may well be the first person ever to see such depths. When he got to the end he ran his hand over the Crystal wall in front of him as he looked out onto the rocky ocean bed. He settled down in a lotus position and took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself for the strain to come.

Placing his palms firmly on the floor beneath him he once again molded Crystal chakra and sent it out in pulses, eyes closed and concentrating on what his senses detected. Crystal came first, obviously, and then there was water, a layer of sand and finally hard cold rock. All in all he had everything he needed. Digging deep into his reserves he pulled up a large amount of chakra, molded it into Crystal chakra and spread it out giving it the shape he desired.

The overall form was cylindrical but with the top being curved like a squished dome so that it could withstand the pressure of all the water pressing down on it. Naruto pumped more and more chakra into it until the circumference roughly matched that of Konoha. From his position near the ocean bed the cylinder rose about six hundred feet (200m) to give ample space for the town to be built. It then descended twice as far under the sea floor, finishing in a flat bottom surface.

As soon as he had the shape in place, making sure that it was properly connected to the tunnel, Naruto allowed his chakra to start drawing in the physical elements required to create the submerged village's shell. He controlled it so that water was only drawn from the inside, or rather what would become the inside when he finished, and rock was taken from the areas that needed to be cleared for the shell to take place.

The outward effect was incredible. Wind was sucked down the tunnel at gale force speeds forcing Naruto to divert chakra into his but cheeks and thighs just to stay seated. The water level inside the dome shaped part started to drop as the shimmering transparent blue shell of Eternal Ice started to form. Cracks appeared regularly as the weight of the outside water pressed down on it, forcing Naruto to pump even more chakra in to compensate. Sweat poured down his face only to be blown off by the forceful winds as the stormed past. The excess rock cracked as it was pushed out of the way of the forming crystal. For what seemed like hours but could have been days he leant every part of his concentration to his task, building the walls up to sixty feet thick (20m) in all places. When all the water on the inside was used he started draining from outside the shell, winds still raging around him, until he was finally done.

Naruto slumped onto his back and uncurled his legs, trying to stretch out the stiffness. He was whacked! He still had a bit of chakra left but the mental drain gave him a headache of ungodly proportions. With a last small effort he made a group of five clones and sent them to check his work. He then promptly fell asleep.

When he woke up he sifted through his memories and found the clones' observations. It wasn't a perfect circle, which was to be expected, but there were no cracks or thin spots so he was rather happy with himself. Getting to his feet he walked into the dome, exiting the tunnel without problem since the clones had opened it. Time to get to work!

First he created a large group of a thousand Kage Bushin to start carving the environment seals into the shell. The tunnel provided air for the moment but when the village was full of people that wouldn't be enough. Each seal was carved three times using Complex manipulation to place an array at five, ten and fifteen feet in the shell so that if one was damaged there would be two backups. The clones worked in twos: one carving and the other making sure there were no mistakes.

While they did that the original started using Earth manipulation to dig under the 'top dome'. He intended to create a number of different 'zones', some for training areas, some for growing plants or raising livestock and some for training areas. The best part was that, depending on the seals he put in place around these zones, he could create the perfect environment. Uzu would be able to produce the best and rarest of goods allowing the village to not only be totally independent, but also a very influential exporter.

The rock he cleared out was compacted into blocks for civilian style building purposes. There was still a lot of work to do but there heavy part was done, with clones working on the rest it wouldn't take too long for Uzugakure to be ready to open its doors.